THE anonymous figure on the screen told a graphic and disturbing story. As a seven-year-old boy he had been handed to a brutal paedophile gang who had on occasions included Jimmy Savile.

The witness, called “Stephen”, said he had been directly abused by the “sadistic” BBC presenter.

Meanwhile, another alleged victim of a paedophile gang — this one comprising politicians including a former prime minister, military figures and intelligence chiefs — was giving his account under the name “Nick”. He claimed that three boys had been murdered by this group…

It appears that the media are finally joining the dots, although it’s a painfully slow process and each step of the way is marred by confusion.

The “anonymous witness” appeared as “Stephen” on a TV documentary about Savile in the summer of 2014, [1] and his “VIP” allegations as “Nick” came a few months later. However, “Nick” also uses a third pseudonym (as now noted by the Telegraph) that predates “Stephen” and “Nick”, and his writings under this third name assimilate both strands of his allegations. Further, the fact that “Nick” had also accused Savile has been public knowledge for some time now; the detail appears in a Daily Mail profile from September, and Harvey Proctor and Lord Bramall have both confirmed that police asked them whether they knew Savile.

Thus it does not seem to me, as implied by the Sunday Times, that the man has been deliberately posing as two different people – rather, the names of “Stephen” and “Nick” were given to him by different media sources for their own purposes. Perhaps there were legal reasons for this, although it has also meant that some of “Nick’s” most lurid allegations under his original pseudonym have not come to wider attention. It is not clear why Exaro News, which has heavily invested in “Nick”, did not highlight the claimed Savile connection; and the journalist Mark Williams-Thomas has suggested on Twitter that the police were not aware of it for a while, either.

Two other reports about “Nick” are worth noting, both from the Telegraph. According to one item, he is to be investigated by the police for wasting police time; however, the details of the story show that this merely means that Harvey Proctor’s lawyers have made a request, not that the police now regard “Nick” as a suspect.

A second item carries the allegation that Nick “stole” details of his supposed abuse from the testimonies of others:

…The witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, alleged that “Nick” had “stolen” details from other survivors’ accounts after they appeared in court records and Press interviews – and presented them as his own.

…[He] said there were “close parallels” between the claims made by “Nick” and up to six other abuse survivors.

…”His story is a collage of maybe half a dozen survivors’ experiences, with no collaboration, which have been bastardised to meet his own needs as a narcissist liar…”

Footnote

(1) The programme, titled “Jimmy Savile”, was made by Title Role Productions for a series called Crimes that Shook Britain. It was first broadcast on CI (Crime + Investigation), and later on Channel 5 as a part of Britain’s Worst Crimes.

UPDATE 2019: “Nick” has now been revealed to be a man named Carl Beech. His allegations have been comprehensively exposed as lies, and he has been found guilty of perverting the course of justice and fraud. He was also found to be in possession of a collection of child-abuse images, and to have used a hidden camera to film the teenage friend of his son using a toilet. For more, see here.

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Note on Attacks

Anyone who comments on current affairs on-line risks being smeared by attack sites and/or abusive Tweets. This is particularly so if one chooses to challenge dishonesty or other kinds of reprehensible behaviour.

As a result of making a stand in a few particular instances, I have become the focus of a number of such attacks. Those who have targeted me include: a Nigerian evangelist who believes in “child witches”; former activists with the EDL; a man with a long history of bad debt and grandiosity; a sockpuppeting tabloid journalist; and a self-serving “celebrity” MP who deploys smears to discourage scrutiny.

The bad faith of such sites and Tweets ought to be self-evident. However, any readers interested in the true background can read this and this.